Jump to content

digit

Recommended Posts

After a long long wait, the periodic heavy rains that have repeatedly pushed the water level of the Peace River up and out of range for Florida fossil hunters, our "dry season" is finally starting to act like the non-rainy part of our year. Tammy and I got out two weekends ago with a group of SCUBAnauts from the Tampa/St. Pete area. While checking the levels right before that trip, I visited one of my favorite spots along the river to see if it would be accessible for the group. The water two weeks ago was nearly a foot higher than at present but even with the higher level the locality worked for the group (11 canoes of kids and their accompanying adults). I like this site because it has more chunky gravel which results (on rare occasions) in finding larger items. I've pulled substantial chunks of mammoth molar from this site several years ago--as well as a gold wedding band (no inscription) and a gold tie tack (no Jimmy Hoffa jokes, please). :P The main draw though is dugong. Though fossil hunters who've spent any amount of time on the Peace generally have their share of the solid rib bones from these cousins of our modern-day manatee, newbies to the concept of fossil hunting in Florida never fail to enjoy these large and substantial items.

 

Tammy and I went back this weekend without the crowd of two dozen we were guiding on the river at the end of March. We went on a Sunday and the river was reasonably quiet and peaceful. We met another couple on the bus ride up to the put-in and gave them some tips on hunting the river as it was their first time. They were the recipients of many fossils and fraglodons that (while interesting) would probably would have either ended back in the river or handed out to kids in passing canoes.

 

P4141197.jpg     P4141210.jpg

 

I was prospecting around my "dugong" site (that's what it is called in my GPS ;)) and could feel with my feet the little pits and piles of chunky rubble left over from our last visit stripping out countless dozens of dugong ribs now scattered in the nascent collections of those we took down the river on our previous visit. Most of the site is still too deep to get to even with the river 10" lower than last time. The air and water temps were much more pleasant than last time and it didn't take as much motivation to walk into chest-deep water. I dug for about 4 hours and had little to show for it other than a bag of nice specimens of dugong ribs (to reload my "paleo paperweight" gifting stockpile). After a break back at the canoe for a drink and some more salty snacks, I ventured off in the direction where I used to dig but which was now probably too deep to dig. En route to that spot I passed a rise in the bottom that was so steep that it looked like I was walking up submerged steps till I was only thigh deep in the river. My trusty probe--which I carry like a walking cane, probing the sand with each step to test the subsurface composition of the river bottom--detected the delightful crunchy sound indicating some substantial gravel deposits not far below the sandy covering along the bottom.

 

I did a test screen from this spot and was rewarded with a nice little Whitetail Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) molar. These are not as common (in my experience) as the Equus horse molars that are occasional finds in the Peace. This one came complete with a reasonable portion of the roots intact and will bolster my meager number of these in my collection.

 

P4141198.jpg

 

 

A few screens later would end up bringing in my trip-makers and the high point of the afternoon. While picking through the contents of that screen I spotted the very distinctive shape of a peg-like tooth from a member of the order Xenarthra ("strange joint") aka Edentata ("toothless"). I have just a few similar but larger teeth from ground sloths which are highly valued by Florida collectors. A few years back I found a similar but smaller peg tooth that turned to be from the armadillo Holmesina floridanus. I assumed this tooth might be from a larger individual but was pleased to learn more in a quick response to my query from Dr. Richard Hulbert from the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, FL. Richard confirmed that the peg tooth was from a Holmesina but that it was from the larger (2 meter long) species, Holmesina septentrionalis, that roamed Florida from the middle to late Pleistocene (500,000 to 11,000 years ago). The smaller H. floridanus that preceded it was in Florida from the late Pliocene to the early Pleistocene (2.5-1.5 mya).

 

Contained in that screen was a very oddly shaped bone with curved parts and flat articulating surfaces. I assumed this was one of those odd bones in the leg like the navicular bone that I hear about but haven't seen enough examples of to fully understand or recognize. Richard commented that, the odd-shape bone that appeared in the same sifting screen was, coincidentally, from the same species (H. septentrionalis) and that it was an astragalus which articulates with the navicular so I get points for being close. :P Then he added something that made my whole morning:

 

This is actually a rare find, especially in the southern half of Florida, for which we do not have a single H. septentrionalis astragalus in our collection. Please consider donating it.

 

I quickly replied that I'd set this aside and would bring it up with me next time I visit Gainesville (where Tammy and I are looking for our next house).

 

You can bet I'll be keen to get back up to the Peace to see if any other Holmesina bits might be hiding in the gravel nearby. These two items are likely not associated and it was probably just luck that I'd come across two very different items from the same rare species in a single sifting screen. If the two pieces were closely related in the skeletal structure I'd believe that they might from the same individual but I believe this is probably just a happy coincidence. A couple more hours of digging in the same area turned up no further identifiable bits from this species but you can be certain that I'll devote some extra effort to that spot next time on the river. Enjoy the wrinkly finger tips in the in-river photos below. :)

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

P4141200.jpg     P4141204.jpg

 

P4141205.jpg     P4141206.jpg

 

  • I found this Informative 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some additional images of the items dried and cleaned-up a bit back home. Fingers don't look like they are from a drowning victim anymore. :P

 

P4151218.jpg     P4151219.jpg

 

P4151221.jpg     P4151220.jpg

 

 

P4151222.jpg

 

P4151225.jpg     P4151226.jpg

 

  • I found this Informative 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The adventures continue...great account. Wishing you good luck in that house hunt. Kathy and I have vowed never to move again! However, relocating to a situation you find more attractive is certainly a worthy pursuit. I hope you happen upon a place that exceeds your every wish. 

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, also are remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. - Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great finds Ken, glad you could get out :fistbump:

Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Outstanding finds! That Talus Bone (astragalus) is much more ornate than a Navicular Bone!! I have a question for you about your finds. Why does Dr. Richard Hulbert not feel there is an association between the tooth and the talus bone? To find rare material from the same species close together just says an association is possible to me.

 

 Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Richard didn't mention anything about the bones being associated (or not). True, this is a rather rare species to find in the Peace River (a bit more common in the northern end of Florida) but it is my contention that these are not necessarily from the same individual. I dug the same spot for another 2-3 hours without turning up any additional armadillo material--not even the most common parts which are the bony osteoderm plates. If I had been able to turn up a nice cache of parts from this species, my assumption would have been that a relatively intact individual had washed out from the banks not far upstream and had been deposited (a bit jumbled up) at the site I was digging. As the pieces I found were not closely related (cranial element and limb bone) I'm being conservative and presuming this was just a happy coincidence.

 

Many years ago I was digging at a well-known large gravel bed just downstream from the Brownville Park put-in. The spot gets hit hard so you need to do a lot of prospecting to select a place to dig. Later in a busy fossil hunting season, the site looks like a bombing range with potholes and spoil piles scattered throughout the gravel bed. Each summer--like a giant Etch-A-Sketch (Télécran in France)--the river reshuffles the gravel and redistributes the spoil piles while paving over even the most ambitious of holes left by the last season's fossil hunters. The trick is to try to dig beneath the surface gravel to get to some deeper layers. This is thwarted most times by hitting a sticky gray clay layer that rarely holds any fossils but makes sifting miserable and messy. I had discovered a spot where the gravel extended down a couple of feet and avoided the dreaded clay. Within two or three screens I had pulled up a pair of bison teeth. Several more hours of working that spot revealed a few other nice items like Equus molars and glyptodont osteoderms. I had always assumed that those two bison molars had to be associated (I've not found a subsequent one in years of sifting)--the odds were just to great that they were not in some way associated!

 

I was quickly schooled on how rash assumptions like this can quickly fall apart when I was doing a volunteer dig with the FLMNH at the Thomas Farm site a few years later. Dr. Hulbert would be there managing the dig and so I brought a number of my Peace River unknowns and more interesting finds with me to get some identifications from Richard in an expedient manner that did not require taking photos and waiting for email responses. He quickly confirmed my ID that the two molars were bison (thankfully not modern cow which look similar). When I mentioned that they must be associated having found them within minutes of each other at the site he soon set me straight. He could definitively state that they were not from the same individual. He explained to me how one tooth was shorter than the other indicating one specimen was from an older individual (more worn and shorter) and the other was from a younger bison. The capper though was they were the exact same tooth position! :P

 

These days I can still hope rare finds found together may indicate an association but I hold back on assumptions till they are confirmed with additional evidence. Will not be able to get back to the Peace till probably May but I'm hoping the river continues to drop a bit before the summer rains refill it. You can bet I'll spend more time around that spot to see if any other Holmesina bits end up in my sifting screen. ;)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

  • I found this Informative 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...